Papers for

aerospace system teams

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Scalable method improves safety checks for neural network controllers

Scalable Incremental Robustness Analysis of Neural Network Feedback Systems

Abstract: Semidefinite programming (SDP) certificates for feedback systems containing deep neural networks (NNs) typically scale with the total number of neurons, whereas small-gain tests are scalable but can be highly conservative. This paper develops a unified and scalable framework for incremental robust stability and performance analysis of feedback interconnections involving high-dimensional NNs and unmodeled dynamics. By combining a structured decomposition of the full-order SDP condition with scalable Lipschitz constant estimation algorithms, we derive reduced verification conditions that certify incremental convergence and incremental $\ell_2$-gain bounds. The dimensions of the resulting control-analysis linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) depend only on the widths of the last two network layers and are \textit{independent of network depth}. The framework preserves the coupling between the plant and the NN, with the incremental small-gain condition recovered as a special case. To further reduce conservatism, we develop a multi-round alternating update scheme that iteratively refines the coupling variables while preserving scalability. Numerical experiments show that the proposed framework achieves state-of-the-art incremental $\ell_2$-gain bounds for large-scale NN feedback systems.

Fri 18 SeptMachine Learning
The gist
Controlling machines using neural networks can be tricky because checking their safety often becomes too slow for big networks. The authors created a new method that breaks down complex checks into smaller parts, focusing only on the last layers of the network, making the process much faster. Their approach still keeps important details about how the controller and machine interact. They tested it and found it gives better safety guarantees than older methods on large systems.
Open → 2609.22576v1